Saturday, August 16, 2014

The Art of Architectural Photography 8-16-2014

Light is integral to all visuals.  And light is the basic component of photography.  Yet light is elusive, mysterious, not easy to grasp either figuratively or literally.  Light is beautiful in its power and its ability to unify.  It is decorative, illuminating and creative.  Light can be harsh or soft; blinding or guiding; relevant or discordant.  As a photographer light is my adversary, my friend and my teacher.

On a recent trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, I was gifted with a day of varying light patterns.  The day started out cloudy.  Often a cloudy day provides the "best" conditions during which to photograph outdoors because there is no glare. My day then became gloriously sunny giving me a chance to shoot shafts of sunlight sifting through leaves and creating shapes on walkways.  Still later, humidity caused my lens to occasionally fog up.  (Not necessarily a bad thing, fog, if used to its advantage as a diffuser.)  The different lighting options gave me natural lighting opportunities to hone in on some macro photography I had been wanting to do.  Later, I enjoyed walking on the dappled sun/shade paths the Gardens offer.  All was lush and dense with summer's greenery and flowers.  Each lighting scenario accentuated the colors and forms.

In every season and weather, I always love looking at the natural plantings in the Gardens.  And I am delighted with the way that the architecture of the buildings complements these beautiful plantings.  Interiors and exteriors feature lovely augmentations to the gardens.  The art deco lobby I visited that day in one of the BBG's central buildings brought forth the memories I have of Brooklyn when deco abounded.  The style was extremely popular throughout the middle decades of the twentieth century and I grew up seeing art deco detailing in numerous buildings all over NYC.  It is a marvelously adaptive design palette that emphasizes light and all of its characteristics.  The forms and lines of art deco attract and appreciate every light perogative.  It is especially enchanting to see art deco shapes of light echoing, enhancing and creating design as they are admitted through the wonderful glass deco door panels.  

 Black and white architectural photography: Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, Brooklyn NYC

To learn more about light visit:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/light.htm
http://www.starlight2007.net/pdf/proceedings/CesarPortela.pdf
http://www.physicsinsights.org/interference_1.html

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